<Emphasis Type="Italic">Liberellas</Emphasis> Versus <Emphasis Type="Italic">Konservatives</Emphasis>: Social Status,Ideology, and Birth Names in the United States

Despite much public speculation, there is little scholarly research on whether or how ideology shapes American consumer behavior. Borrowing from previous studies, we theorize that ideology is associated with different forms of taste and conspicuous consumption: liberals are more drawn to indicators of “cultural capital” while conservatives favor more explicit signs of “economic capital”. These ideas are tested using birth certificate, U.S. Census, and voting records from California in 2004. We find strong differences in birth naming practices related to race, economic status, and ideology. Although higher status mothers of all races favor more popular birth names, higher status, white liberal mothers more often choose uncommon, culturally obscure birth names. White liberals also favor birth names with “softer, feminine” sounds while conservatives favor names with “harder, masculine” phonemes. These findings have significant implications for both studies of consumption and debates about ideology and political fragmentation in the United States.     

The Intensionality behind Legal Concepts and Their Extensional Boundaries: Between Conventionalism and Interpretivism

This article constitutes an attempt to reexamine a crucial issue of legal theory from the perspective of philosophy of language and of social ontology: by analyzing a jurisprudential case recently decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, we explain how Searle's account on rules in The Construction of Social Reality constitutes an important starting point for the clarification of the old jurisprudential debate between conventionalism and interpretivism. In a nutshell, we show that Searle's framework, while strictly conventionalist, makes it possible to conceive of the distinction between the semantic content of rules (their intended purpose) and their extension, by drawing a parallel with the idea of “deep conventions” (and “essential rules”) as well as with the semantic conventions in natural language. The paper thus touches on the broader problem of the relations between legal concepts and nonlegal values (law and morality).     

Engaging Insurgency: The Impact of the 2016 Colombian Peace Agreement on FARC's Political Participation

The 2016 Peace Agreement between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—People's Army (the FARC-EP or FARC) commits to reforming political participation, especially of traditionally marginalized sectors throughout the country to consolidate Colombian democracy. While the Peace Agreement provides implementation mechanisms that support the insurgency's transition from armed group to political party, it also complements the FARC's political strategy that has traditionally maintained consistency. This article argues that the 2016 Peace Agreement has the potential to enhance democratic, political, and societal participation by engaging with FARC in two key ways—by attempting to reconcile key FARC grievances and containing specific mechanisms that increase participation of traditionally marginalized groups in Colombia. This article argues that the Agreement has impacted positively on FARC's political participation and given it incentives to pursue its political strategy democratically. Likewise, the Agreement has provided a positive-sum outcome for the Colombian government to strengthen its democratic legitimacy by placing emphasis on structural reform.     

Introduction: German Party Membership in the 21st Century

The party membership decline experienced in Germany in the last decades raises a number of theoretical, empirical, and normative questions, a selection of which is addressed in this special issue of German Politics. In this introduction, we summarise some of the central arguments and findings presented. Although the individual articles take various perspectives and present specific insights, as a whole they allow for drawing some consequences: Firstly, party membership decline seems to be irreversible, secondly, it does neither imply an inadequate organisational linkage between society and state institutions nor, thirdly, a threat to democracy.     

Substantiated Childhood Maltreatment and Intimate Partner Violence Victimization in Young Adulthood: A Birth Cohort Study

Little is known about the associations between various types of childhood maltreatment and multiple forms of intimate partner violence victimization in early adulthood. This study examines the extent to which childhood experiences of maltreatment increase the risk for intimate partner violence victimization in early adulthood. Data for the present study are from 3322 young adults (55?% female) of the Mater Hospital-University of Queensland Study of Pregnancy with the mean age of 20.6 years. The Mater Hospital-University of Queensland Study of Pregnancy is a prospective Australian pre-birth cohort study of mothers consecutively recruited during their first antenatal clinic visit at Brisbane’s Mater Hospital from 1981 through to 1983. Participants completed the Composite Abuse Scale at 21-year follow-up and linked this dataset to agency recorded substantiated cases of childhood maltreatment. In adjusted models, the odds of reporting emotional intimate partner violence victimization were 1.84, 2.64 and 3.19 times higher in physically abused, neglected and emotionally abused children, respectively. Similarly, the odds of physical intimate partner violence victimization were 1.76, 2.31, 2.74 and 2.76 times higher in those children who had experienced physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect and emotional abuse, respectively. Harassment was 1.63 times higher in emotionally abused children. The odds of severe combined abuse were 3.97 and 4.62 times greater for emotionally abused and neglected children, respectively. The strongest associations involved reports of child emotional abuse and neglect and multiple forms of intimate partner violence victimization in young adulthood. Childhood maltreatment is a chronic adversity that is associated with specific and multiple forms of intimate partner violence victimization in adulthood.     

Japan’s uncertain security environment and changes in its legislative‒executive relations

Abstract

Focusing on Japan, this paper explores whether powers and competences in the political system are likely to be recalibrated in favour of the executive when the environment is perceived as increasingly threatening. It shows that the executive has been significantly strengthened during the past two decades of political reforms, though a closer look reveals that only the most recent efforts are motivated by security concerns. Case studies on military deployments and arms exports do not expose any clear trend towards curbing parliament’s formal control powers, but they indicate two related mechanisms that affect executive?legislative relations. Firstly, the executive has sought to ensure faster decision-making in security policy, which may limit the Diet’s ability to scrutinise policies in depth. Secondly, the level of contestation over security policy issues has been decreasing, especially given the securitisation of North Korea and China. This provides the executive with more leeway in devising policies.     

Reputational Concerns and the Emergence of Oil Sector Transparency as an International Norm

This study argues that the reputational concerns of several high-profile actors drove the emergence of oil sector transparency as an international norm. Thanks to successful advocacy campaigns, developing country oil sector operations began to pose increasing levels of reputational risk to Western governments, international institutions, and corporations. These actors responded to this scrutiny by facilitating the evolution of transparency into a widely cited oil sector "best practice." However, the self-interests of these actors also altered the course of the norm's definition and institutionalization in ways which may constrain its eventual impact on industry behaviors. This study narrates the surprising and rapid spread of the transparency norm in developing country oil affairs, a process which suggests that reputational utility should be considered as a possible explanation for norm emergence.     

International Feminism and Empire‐Building between the Wars: the case of Viola Smith

This article examines US Trade Commissioner Viola Smith’s role in the furtherance of the American empire between World Wars I and II. As a Foreign Service Officer in Shanghai, China on behalf of the Department of Commerce and through her activism as an international feminist in the Pacific region, Smith perpetuated the imperialist project. As Trade Commissioner, she implemented trade policy in lucrative China that helped to economically enrich the USA. Likewise, as an international feminist, Smith injected Western superiority to the international feminist sphere through her work for peace and women’s rights in the Pacific.     

“Strength at Home” Group Intervention for Military Populations Engaging in Intimate Partner Violence: Pilot Findings

In this brief report, we present information on the Strength at Home intervention to treat male active duty or military veteran perpetrators of intimate partner violence (IPV) as well as preliminary pilot study findings. Strength at Home is a 12-session cognitive-behavioral group intervention developed by the authors that is based on a social information processing model of IPV perpetration. Six men referred to two intervention groups and five collateral female partners participated in this pilot study. Findings indicated large reductions for most indices of physical and psychological IPV from pre-treatment to 6-month follow-up. These initial results are promising though the small sample size and other study limitations preclude our ability to draw firm conclusions.